Red Light Indicates Doors are Secured
by crashmypartyhard
Summary: The Boys from the Dwarf come across a strange ship floating through space, with only one passenger. But when she comes onto the Dwarf and refuses to be put into quarantine, running around the ship leaving false trails and sanity-staggering feats for them to puzzle at, what will she have in store when-and if-they catch her? (Possible Rimmer x OC)


Her eyes snap open and her paused breathing begins again-quick, gaping gasps. A spiderweb crack in her helmet obstructs her vision, and her eyes flicker around, taking in her surroundings. She realizes—she remembers where she is. She sits up in the now opened pod and a sudden burst of dizziness hits her. She clutches the sides of her helmet, while behind the visor her eyes are shut tight as she feels pounding in her head. The really loud talking coming from above her isn't helping, either.

Once the pounding in her head lessens considerably, as does the urge to vomit, she stands, lugging herself out of the pod. She feels weak for a moment when she steps out of it and stands straight, almost losing her balance as she jogs out of the door of the suite. Artificial light reflects off of a nametag set in her chestplate—something's written in a strange language. She's clad in a skin-tight suit, parts of it varying from black and grey in color. Parts of it seem to be made of metal, but looks like cloth. Armored plates are strapped to her thighs and attached to her suit on her forearms, as well as on her chest. She runs down a couple sets of stairs—lights blink and flash, mechanical sounds echo as she makes her way down. She is alone. She knows this—but she can't remember why that is.

She finally emerges into the cockpit of the ship. A sudden wave of fatigue hits her as soon as she slows to a stop, and her head begins to pound again. Her hands ball themselves into fists, and she slowly looks up to the source of the loud speaking. A message in a language unknown to her broadcasts, and she dare not step into the field of vision of the monitor, definitely not wanting to converse with the being trying to contact her. She doesn't even know the language, and she also doesn't know if the being's hostile or not. From the look and sound of it, as she leans forward a bit, whatever it is seems commanding…and looks a lot like her race.

But wait. Contact like this means…means another ship.

She looks out the front of the cockpit, and sure enough—there it is. A…really, really big red ship. Something's written on the side, but it's foreign to her and she sighs, annoyed. She needs to figure out the language, and soon. It's definitely no good going in there blind. Could run into a room and have it be a trap—and she doesn't want that happening. Not today.

She looks up at the ship again. _It's better than floating uselessly in deep space…_ she thinks silently. She turns tail, off to find a weapon to arm herself with, and the message stops and begins broadcasting in another language.

A familiar hologram sits on a grey chair in a grey room, leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His eyes flicker back and forth as he reads a book held for him by a Scutter. "Turn the page," He commands, and a second Scutter grabs the page and begins turning it, but instead of turning it properly, rips it instead. "No—no, just let it go you worthless piece of trash." He snaps, and the first Scutter drops the book, the second, after a moment, following suit, leaving seemingly in a huff.

Arnold Rimmer stands, sighing deeply and reaching down to pick up the fallen book—his hand goes right through it and his hologramatic jaw clenches in anger and self-loathing. _God, Rimmer, remember you're a hologram. Is it really that smegging hard? God, you smeghead._

The mirror in the room warps and comes up different, a blonde head in front of a black background. "Hey, Rimmer, there's a ship right outside the ship."

"What?" He takes a step towards her.

Holly rolls her eyes. "I _said_—"

He interrupts her. "I heard what you said you smegging computer! I meant what's _in_ there? Any signs of life?" Sometimes it's hard to remember that according to Holly, she has an IQ of six thousand. Rimmer sometimes truly believes it's actually six.

"Well, there's one." She says nonchalantly.

Rimmer pauses in his excitement. "One?" he repeats, and crosses his arms. His brows slowly point downwards, and he brings a finger to his lips, thinking. "Does Lister or the Cat know?"

"Yeah, just told Lister."

He rolls his eyes. "Great. Where are they at?"

"Should be coming down the corridor in about—"

Lister runs in, out of breath and ecstatic. "Is there any signs of life? What's in there?" He's looking right at Holly, eyes wide and optimistic.

"One, you gimboid." Rimmer says. "Only one."

"One?" He asks, and Rimmer nods. He laughs at his nervous expression. "Ay, Rimsy, don't look so down—certainly better than nothin', now is it? I mean, it could be a woman for all we know."

They both pause and turn their heads to Holly, now both their eyes wide and expectant. Holly sighs. "I don't know for sure." She says.

"Well, smeg!"Lister says, sarcastically. "The only way we're gonna find out is..." Lister begins, turning his head to Rimmer beside him, eyebrows raised, "Is if we let 'er in."

He immediately shakes his head. "No. Absolutely not. Nope. We don't _know_ what it could be carrying! It could be some dangerous, mutated creature like the Polymorph or one of your wet socks!"

"Oh, c'mon. If it is, we've survived it before. And if it's something else, well…we've survived worse."

"That's not an excuse to go welcoming this _thing_ into the ship only for it to kill us. What about foreign viruses, or diseases?"

"We've survived worse, Rimsy, okay? We can put 'er in quarantine 'til we know she's clear."

"What if it resists?"

"We'll have Kryten sedate 'er."

"What if it fights back?"

"Then we stop 'er."

"What if it ends up capturing you?"

"Then I'll fight back. Oh, c'mon Rimsy, just—"

"What if you die?"

There is a pause, and Lister stiffens a bit. He quickly answers. "…Then I die." He says, shrugging. Skepticism flickers in his eyes.

Rimmer swallows, licking his lips. "Well, then I'm not risking letting you die." He says, and quickly makes an excuse for letting his care for the dreadlocked last human to show."Mostly because _I_ don't want to die."

Lister rolls his eyes, the skepticism no longer there. "Fine, fine. We'll try to establish contact—y'know, ask 'er what she wants."

"What if it isn't a _she_?" Rimmer smirks, raising an eyebrow.

They're interrupted by a yowling from the hallway and Cat shuffles into the room. "What's happenin', buds?"

"There's a ship outside the ship and it seems like it wants to come on 'ere. There's one sign of life but we don't know if it's a she or not." Lister explains, hands now on his hips as he walks a few steps towards Cat.

"I'm just going to assume you said it was a she. I'm going to go and make myself look presentable, don't want to look bad in front of the lady." He yowls out of the room, and Rimmer visibly sneers.

After not being able to establish connection with the ship, they—meaning Rimmer, of course, with objections from Lister—tells Holly not to let the ship on at any cost.

"If it can't establish connections with us, then it must be something horrible, I just know it." Rimmer says, pacing back and forth in the drive room. He licks his lips nervously.

"Oh, c'mon Rimmeh, it can't be _that_ bad! Please?" Lister sits in one of the chairs, legs up on the counter as he whines. Kryten, standing off to the side, looks alert when Lister talks to him. "Ay, Krytie, what d'you think?"

"Oh, don't bring the mechanoid into this—" Rimmer begins, and then just sighs and goes back to pacing, looking annoyed.

"Well, I think it would be wise to leave it alone, because I do not feel safe with letting you go and put yourself in danger, Mister Lister." He says, and Rimmer smiles until he begins to say more. "But if you really want to, we can let her in and try and converse with her. We will do so armed, of course."

Lister looks to Rimmer with his usual gerbil-faced grin. "See Rimmeh? It's gonna work. Kryten's given us a _plan_."

He huffs in response, smirking coldly. "But what about everything else? Unknown diseases, it being some kind of mutated—"

"Yeh, I know, but we'll have our bazookoids and we'll be _fine._ Trust me, Rimmeh."

"Well _I_ won't go with you." Rimmer says, ceasing his pacing and crossing his arms, staring off behind Lister, looking smug.

"What if it sees me, and, being a woman, falls in love with me? What'cha gonna do 'bout that, eh, Rimsy?" Lister stands, walking past Rimmer. "Now, we're gonna go grab the bazookoids and Cat and go invite 'er in, if you don't mind." He asks Holly to let her in, and walks out of the room with a slight smirk on his face.

Rimmer watches as Kryten trails Lister out of the room. He stands there in the same position for a moment, and then sighs deeply, running quickly out the door to follow them.


End file.
